Sermon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrIwUAgaAFY

Mission

What is the mission of the church? Or as one pastor put the question for what purpose does your church exist? You may have noticed by now my preoccupation with mission. Every organization should know why it exists. Mission brings focus, clarity, vision, and makes teamwork possible. I was reading the Twelve keys to an Effective Church by Kennon L. Callahan and He made this statement. “Indeed, the first and most central characteristic of an effective, successful church is its specific, concrete, missional objectives.” Did you catch that, “the most central characteristic…” That would be an important thing. As we have all heard it said “keep the main thing the main thing.”



One of the things that a mission should do is to lead us beyond ourselves. Our mission should be to more than to just our members. Let me provide an example of how fixated our thinking is on members. While at annual conference a person asked me “how large is your church?” The answer she was looking for was the number of members. I could have answered that question in many ways. For example the size of the sanctuary, the number of acres for the campus, number of parking spaces, or class rooms, this would be our physical plant. The other answer would be our average attendance in worship, and Sunday school, and bible studies, or our number of members. But both of these answers focus on how large the church is not how large our mission is. I will grant you this we often talk of these things because they are easy to quantify. We know these numbers. But how large our church is can be defined in how many non-members we reach. It could be measured in our mission field.



Here is a good question and I almost never hear it asked, “How many people are you serving in mission?” The mission that I read in the Gospel is serving. When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God he says the “first shall be last and the last shall be first.” If we want to be great then we must serve! I am so very proud of the great things that this church does. From the clinic, to share, to basket ball, to summer camp, to UM ARMY, and this past week to VBS. I personally have come to find that in serving I have found life. I know as we serve together we will continue to find life in Jesus Christ.

Feeling Guilty

This past week I was driving the church suburban. It needs to be driven occasionally and checked for maintenance issues. As I was driving it, I noticed that the inspection sticker seemed to be out of date. I noticed it but was unable to take it in for an inspection until the next day. As I drove I became aware of every police officer on the road. I was wondering; would the next officer notice and pull me over and give me a ticket? As I drove the sight of an officer made me feel guilty. I was driving with guilt on my mind. The next day when I took the suburban in for its inspection I found out that the inspection sticker was valid. Turns out it was good through 2013. There was no need for a new inspection! The feeling of guilt left me.



This incident reminds me of how some people feel about church. The sight of a church can make a person feel guilty. The sight of a priest, a cross, a steeple or any other sign of God can make us feel guilty. The irony is that under the blood of Jesus our guilt has been taken away. As believer in Christ we have been set free. Sin has been defeated, yet often guilt nags at us. At a deep level this guilt is able to obtain a foothold in two places. One is in our lack of trust in God, and two is in our mentality of self-accomplishment. Both are places of spiritual warfare.



Under the spirit of self-accomplishment, the short answer is pride. Pride is a sin. When my niece was two years old, she used to tell me, “I can do it me own self.” She would say that when she wanted me or other adults to leave her to her own devices. And, sometimes she was able to accomplish the task; but there were other tasks she was unable to accomplish. Often we can be like a two year old. We are unable to see, because of our pride, our inability to solve a problem. The problem we will never be able to cure is our atonement for sin. Only Jesus can atone for our sin. Atonement for sin was accomplished on the cross.



Our second issue often is our inability to trust in God. I think we are unable to trust God because people have let us down. So we wonder, “will God let me down as well?” Faith can be difficult if we are wondering, did God really take care of my sin? Does God really love me? The good news is that the answer is always yes! God is worthy of our trust! God loves you and loves me and God has taken care of sin. We just need to accept that

God has done the work. We need to accept it as a gift.

To return to the analogy of my inspection sticker guilt: God has placed a new inspection sticker on me! I no longer need to feel guilt for my old sins, Jesus has declared me clean. There is one step in this whole removal of guilt process, we must accept God’s gift as a gift. I did not deserve a new “inspection sticker”. In fact I could not have passed the inspection on my own, but God offered me the “Jesus inspection sticker” I just needed to accept it. So I encourage you to grab hold of God’s forgiveness and let go of your guilt as I let go of mine.